Fat Girl's Guide to Fat Camp - Day One

“If you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything”  - A catch all phrase to rationalise your long list of failures.  Whoever came up with that saying should be shot.  I don’t for one second imagine that if I put my mind ‘to it’ I could make Chris Pine my sex slave. Nor do I imagine that if I put my mind ‘to it’ I could enter and win the Rose of Tralee. Do they mean everyone’s mind and how much do you have to put ‘to it’?  Here’s the problem: I am a heifer.  Unequivocally and shamefully.  Moo!  I’ve tried most diets known to woman.  The first week is always amazing...I convince myself that in those seven days I’ve shrunk down to a side 6, so trim and lean, sideways I’d surely slip through a grate.  I spend seconds persuading myself I am slinky and perfect – Then I’m suddenly impervious to making rational food choices.  Cream cakes? Oh, If you insist! Did you know if you close your eyes there are absolutely no calories!  That’s probably not true but when your mind is as warped as mine you believe your own shite.  Once you fall off your diet and bruise your fat arse it’s very hard to heft yourself back up.  I have an unfortunate disposition that after one week I’m convinced I know everything anyway, so what can these happy-clapy-fat-camp feckers teach me anyway?

Humility for one perhaps.

 Sometimes I fantasise about being kidnapped, trapped for weeks on end without food: crying because my captors are gorging on KFC or Supermac’s; or if they are up market kidnappers - homemade scones with jam and fresh cream.  I image that my sharp, astute wits and that module in Strategy will allow me to formulate an escape plan with more twists and turns than ‘Prison Break.  With my ‘Walking Dead’ survivalist knowledge and abundance of charms, I envisage myself making a triumphant escape and being a desirable, skin and bone size to fall lustfully into Wentworth Miller or Andrew Lincoln’s arms.  But who the feck am I codding?...kidnappers are looking for a light candidate; not one that would take half a rugby team to heist into a transit van and the potential to bald your tyres after 5 miles. 

    I think the worst part of being a heifer is the pitying looks and words of condolences: 

‘I’m sure you will grow out of it...it’s easy to fix...it just takes time...if you exercise more...if you just opted to have your jaw wired shut like I suggested...you may as well give up...have a new career goal, a bucking bronco perhaps...he probably would have asked for another date if you didn’t eat the entire stock of the restaurant...that chair definitely had a wobbly leg...I’m sure they make it in a bigger size...’

   So what’s to be done when you are almost on all fours using your tail to swot flies away, lowing in the dusky evening? I guess trying again is always a good start.  With an impending wedding just 4 weeks away it’s about time I try to shed some pounds...if only so I don’t have to walk with my back pressed against a wall hiding a gaping zip and back boobs.  Attractive huh?  

The first rule of starting a new diet is to eat the entire contents of your fridge and cupboards in one night. Seriously, you don’t want to have to pick through the bin on your lowest moments.  It’s very important to make sure you have enough reserves to undertake this gruelling task.  This may be the last time you admit to eating chocolate and crisps.  It’s a fact universally acknowledged that skinny people don’t eat that stuff, they like to lick laminated pictures of it instead.  

The second rule is to have a good support network.  Fat camps can help you succeed but make sure you are in a group full to the brim with elephants.  It wouldn’t do to attend the class with those who are nearly at their goal – you will look like the photo taped to their fridge. Your aim should be to look like the trócaire kid in every class! Also it helps if you enlist the support of your fattest friend.  Meet up regularly to size her up and feel better about yourself.  If you find you do not have a friend fatter than you – then that’s just rough - do not engage in any ‘coffee and chat’ meet ups...they are looking at how your arse wobbles and thighs jiggle.  Do not trust anyone!

The last rule of starting a new diet is to give it a chance.  Be open to change.  I know you are perfect they way you are...I know you are knowledgeable about everything...and I know you only have a few pounds to lose before you are a supermodel: but just give it a chance.  For me, I have to go back with my tail between my legs...turns out I didn’t know everything and maybe this happy-clapy-fat-camp feckers can help me put my mind ‘to it’ before my arse needs to be photographed to carry its own passport.